


That Old Ralph is a Friend of Mine

by remembermyfic



Series: A Ralph's Life [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, POV Outsider, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembermyfic/pseuds/remembermyfic
Summary: Angel shakes her spines. “They sit close together. Are they like Macy’s humans?”Macy’s humans sometimes bring their pups to the dog park. The pups laugh when Ralph licks them and sometimes need to be reminded to be gentle with Ralph’s short fur. “I don’t think they’re going to have puppies,” Ralph finally replies. He’s not totally sure how that works with humans, honestly.“Do they touch their mouths like Macy’s humans?”(Or: Ralph doesn't mean to be a matchmaker, but he's apparently not immune to peer pressure.)





	That Old Ralph is a Friend of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> For R and L. You guys know why. 
> 
> If you know the people in the tags, do yourself a favour and hit the little x button. 
> 
> This was a fun writing exercise honestly. I don't write from an outsider POV enough. 
> 
> Unbetaed and that's on me. What can I say, I'm impatient.

Ralph is not a dumb dog. 

Ralph is the opposite of a dumb dog. He is, however, an exhausted dog. 

It’s not that he’s been running around all day or anything of the sort. No, Ralph is emotionally exhausted because his humans are more than a little oblivious. His friends are not. 

Or, well. His friends think they know everything about his human. 

(Humans. Dylan is Ralph’s too.)

“The lanky one again,” Rover says when they’re sniffing behind a bush at the dog park. Ralph likes Rover. Rover likes catch and doesn’t mind when Ralph takes it a little too seriously. Ralph likes Charlie too, who’s absently pawing at a pile of pine needles. It’s Tuesday, which means Daisy should be along any minute now. Ralph likes schedules. 

“Dylan,” Ralph agrees. “He was sad.”

“He’s sad a lot.”

Ralph nudges Rover. He’s not a big fan of people talking about Dylan or Alex like that. Ralph works hard to keep them happy and it’s always extra hard when nothing he does can help The Sad. 

“Less than when he started?” 

Ralph doesn’t hum - he’s a dog - but he thinks the little growl in his throat is almost the same thing. Rover doesn’t take it as angry anyway, and that’s kind of the point. 

Rustling of the bush draws their attention. Trashcan has what looks like half a grubby orange in his paws. “Bean Pole doesn’t look so sad now.” 

Ralph tries to take half a subtle step back. Trashcan always smells like, well, trash. “He told Alex he was working on it the last time.” 

“The Sad is hard,” Charlie says sagely, like the elder he is. Charlie mostly wanders when they’re at the park. He doesn’t like fetch. Ralph honestly finds him pretty boring. “Sometimes there isn’t a way to make the humans feel better.” 

“Dylan cuddles,” Ralph offers. He’ll defend Dylan until his dying day. He likes Dylan. Alex likes Dylan, and Ralph finds it very hard to dislike anything Alex likes. “I think it’s a hockey thing.” 

Rover, Charlie, and Trashcan have no idea what hockey is. Ralph knows it’s played on ice because Alex took him to a rink once. Ralph doesn’t mind the ice. Alex loves it. Dylan loves it. It makes Ralph happy when his humans are happy. 

“Maybe it’s a Dylan thing,” Rover offers. “Sometimes it’s an Amy thing.” 

Amy is Rover’s human. Ralph loves Amy. She gives the third best belly rubs. “It’s definitely a Dylan thing,” Ralph agrees. Dylan cuddles everything. Ralph has seen Dylan cuddle Alex on multiple occasions. Alex is smaller than Dylan, by a long shot, and it gives Ralph warm fuzzy feelings to see his humans cuddling. Even more so when he goes to wake Alex up, and he can’t find her in the lumps of the bed. Those are the best mornings, when he gets Dylan and Alex, even if it means one of the two humans is struggling. 

It’s been an up and down hockey time. Ralph knows because Alex came home frustrated at the beginning of the season, talking about points but losing and burying her face in Ralph’s scruff. He doesn’t mind. He loves cuddles, and Alex always gives him back scratches. He loves Alex a lot, and he knows she loves him. 

Then Dylan showed up, a couple of months in, when it was still so freezing cold in Chicago that Alex was wearing her puffy coat. He just showed up at the door, head bowed down like he was embarrassed to be in their doorway. But Ralph knows Dylan. Dylan had visited, and Ralph had visited Dylan, and Ralph remembers how Dylan smells, like hockey and sometimes like Alex. Alex had been brighter after that, is still brighter, and even though now they both mumble about losses even though they also talk about career highs, Ralph feels like it’s better that they’re mumbling about it together. 

“Ralph!” 

Ralph barks out a hasty goodbye and runs for Dylan, barking gleefully when Dylan lets Ralph bowl him over. He’s laughing, which makes Ralph happy, and he licks at Dylan’s face, even though Dylan tries to fight him off. 

“Did you do your business buddy? You were over there a long time.” 

Dylan wouldn’t understand if Ralph told him about Rover and Trashcan and Charlie. Dylan doesn’t understand much when Ralph barks about his friends. He understands the important stuff though and Ralph wiggles a little more. Dylan carries treats in his pockets and Ralph wants one. He can smell them. 

“Come on. Alex says lunch is ready.” 

It doesn’t mean much to Ralph, but he lets Dylan leash him up and they head home. 

 

(Home that night is cozy. There’s a movie that Ralph falls asleep in the middle of, sprawled out on Alex’s legs. She’s curled against Dylan and Ralph feels happy and his content about his humans.) 

 

There’s no dog park on Wednesday, which is fine with Ralph. He gets bored when he goes every day. Plus, Thursday is game day, and it works out that both Alex and Dylan can take him to the dog park and those are his favourites. It’s Alex and Dylan laughing and playing fetch and tug of war before Ralph wanders off to say hello to his friends. 

Angel’s in today, apparently, done in her old park and ready for the spring thaw to bring her new goodies. Ralph likes Angel. Ralph doesn’t like the spines all over Angel’s back. They make her small, but fierce. 

“Your humans are both here again,” she says, superior. Angel always sounds superior, if Ralph’s honest, like somehow living out in the world makes her smarter than the animals that have humans. Ralph is pretty sure he’d never trade Alex (or Dylan) for all of the time in the wilderness. Also chicken. He really likes chicken.

“They do that on game days,” Ralph responds and settles in a patch of early spring sun. He can see Alex and Dylan from where he’s sitting and everything feels content. 

Angel shakes her spines. “They sit close together. Are they like Macy’s humans?” 

Macy’s humans sometimes bring their pups to the dog park. The pups laugh when Ralph licks them and sometimes need to be reminded to be gentle with Ralph’s short fur. “I don’t think they’re going to have puppies,” Ralph finally replies. He’s not totally sure how that works with humans, honestly. 

“Do they touch their mouths like Macy’s humans?” 

Ralph thinks he’s justified in bristling at the way Angel sounds like she knows something Ralph doesn’t. Ralph spends more time with his humans than Angel does, and the audacity to believe she knows something Ralph doesn’t makes his fur stand on end. “They haven’t.” 

Angel doesn’t look convinced. “They want to.” 

Ralph doesn’t mean to growl, not really. It’s enough to draw Charlie’s attention from where he’s nosing at what Ralph thinks is the same patch of pine needles. Maybe there’s a squirrel. Ralph likes squirrels. They’re fast and fun to chase, even if he never wins. “So what if they do?” 

Angel shrugs. “They should, shouldn’t they?” 

“Not if they don’t want to. Humans don’t work like that,” Charlie points out. “It’s not that easy for them.” 

Charlie has seen pups, and the pups of pups. He knows these things. 

“Isn’t the point to have porcupettes?” 

“Puppies,” Charlie translates and wow, most of the time Ralph is not a fan, but moments like these he really loves Charlie. 

“They play hockey,” Ralph replies. “I don’t think they care about puppies right now.” 

“Humans have different rules,” Charlie agrees. “Touching mouths means something to humans.” 

Angel wrinkles her nose. Ralph presses his paws into the ground because it makes her spines shiver. “A lot of humans that touch mouths are like your humans.”

“They don’t touch mouths,” Ralph insists, even as his head tips to the side. Honestly, Ralph has no idea if that’s true or not. He knows Alex is happy more often now that Dylan’s around, and sometimes Alex curls into Dylan with a little smile on her face that makes Ralph want to wag his tail for hours and hours on end, but Ralph really doesn’t know if that means they want to touch mouths. Ralph isn’t sure he wants them to touch mouths, though he will admit there’s something nice about the way Macy’s humans act together. Ralph wants Alex to be that settled. 

Ralph loves Alex the most. 

Charlie just watches, head on his paws. He looks like he could have a nap. Ralph… Ralph doesn’t know. 

“You could find out,” Angel points out, wiggles her body. Ralph honestly can’t tell if her doing so is because of happiness or because she wants to put them on edge. It’s always a fifty-fifty when Angel’s spines wiggle. 

It’s a weird thought. He wants the best for Alex. He wants an Alex that’s always happy. Alex happy plays tug of war in the living room, and cuddles with Ralph on the floor. She does the second when she’s sad too, but it’s always better when she’s happy. She’s happier with Dylan and she always spends a little bit more time in bed when Dylan’s in there with her. They talk in those early morning hours, and sometimes Ralph goes to curl up at the bottom of the bed, just to hear their voices. Sometimes he just curls up outside the door. 

“I don’t know...”

“Ralph! Ralphie! Oh fuck.” 

Ralph doesn’t like the panic on Dylan’s face when he finds Ralph in the bushes. He yips, because he doesn’t want Dylan upset. It’s just Angel, not that Ralph doesn’t get it. Angel can be scary. 

“Come here, buddy. Slow. Don’t want to spook him.”

“I’m a her.” Not that Dylan can understand. Ralph doesn’t argue  with Dylan though, and doesn’t bother to argue with Angel. 

“Did you find him?” Alex! Ralph nudges Dylan’s leg gently before he trots over to Alex and gets his paws on her thighs. Alex coos at him in the way that he loves and rubs at his ears. “Did you have fun buddy? Did you find new friends?” 

“He found a porcupine.” 

Alex stops petting him for a moment and Ralph is not for that. He nudges his head into her hand. “Porcupines are mean,” she says to him. 

Ralph yips again. Alex wouldn’t get it either. Angel mostly looks scary. 

  
  


Ralph pays attention when he goes home. 

What Ralph does see is that they touch each other a lot. But that’s not a lot different from when they hang out with more of the team. Alex is a touchy person, she’s always hanging off of other people, and it’s not like Ralph is shot on pets. There’s a lot of cuddling, and Alex gets a smile on her face that Ralph doesn’t see much when it’s just Alex and Dylan. 

“Sometimes it messes humans up.” 

Ralph’s missed Peanut. Peanut has a fluffy tail and lets Ralph chase her around. Her and Cashew, who also chase each other. They haven’t been around much with how cold it’s been. 

Cashew twitches her tail. “We’ve seen it,” she agrees. “Rover, didn’t it happen to your human?” 

It’s a massive group of them today, huddled in the back corner of the dog park because there are so many bushes. Rover’s there, Charlie, Cashew and Peanut; Ralph thinks Trashcan’s lingering in the bushes somewhere because there’s a bit of a nasty smell to the air. Even Daisy and Macy have made it today. 

“There was a male human, yes,” Rover says, licking his paws. “Then they started yelling at each other, and I didn’t see him much anymore.” 

“Now you don’t see him at all,” Daisy agrees, plopping her butt on the dirt. 

Ralph cannot stand the idea of not seeing Dylan ever again. That makes his stomach feel sick, and he sets his head onto his paws. 

“But.” 

Ralph looks over at Macy, who nudges him when their eyes meet. It’s actually comforting. 

“My humans? They told their pups how they met and why they still live together and everything. Your humans are friends, right?” 

“Best friends.”

Macy settles right in beside him, the warmth of her body right against his. It feels like a team and Ralph likes being a team. Alex talks about her and Ralph like a team, and it always makes Ralph want to wag his tail. “My humans were best friends once. They still are, probably. There’s just more now. And pups. Good pups.” 

Ralph doesn’t know how he feels about the idea of pups. Ralph is pretty sure Alex and Dylan are still young, in human years. Ralph isn’t totally sure Alex could play hockey with pups either. The games they’ve watched on TV have had a bunch of humans banging into each other on ice. Ralph isn’t sure that would be safe for pups. 

But he has to admit, he likes the idea of Dylan never leaving. 

“We could probably test it out,” Peanut says. “Humans love squirrels.” 

“Humans thinks squirrels have diseases.” There’s Trashcan. 

“They think raccoons have diseases,” Cashew fires back. “They feed us.” 

Macy huffs from beside Ralph. “There’s a better way.” 

 

There’s a part of Ralph that thinks Macy’s plan is silly. It’s a movie plot plan, not a real life plan. It makes him nervous to even think about executing it. There are so many things that could go wrong and Ralph doesn’t want to get hurt either… 

He has no idea what makes him do it, really. Maybe it’s a weird sort of need, a weird sort of impulsiveness. It might be because the season’s over, and they’re both too quiet and Ralph gets the idea that maybe something’s coming. It always does, in the summer, because these are the times where Ralph doesn’t see Dylan for a very long time. It feels different this time. Ralph generally knows that Dylan’s not going to disappear. He’s proven that, time and time again. But this time, Ralph really doesn’t like that idea, and he gets the sense that neither Dylan, nor Alex likes it either. 

That’s what makes him do it. 

He’s careful about it. Loops around them once, slowly. 

“Ralph,” Alex says, but she sounds like she’s laughing a little. “What are you doing?” 

Ralph lets Alex untangle him, lets Dylan step away, then waits a little bit. He does it again, a little faster this time. It gets a real laugh from Alex, and even a little chuckle from Dylan, even as they stumble into each other. 

And oh. Now Ralph gets it. 

His heart is thumping in a way that Ralph is mostly unfamiliar with. He bides his time again, then tangles his leash in their feet. 

“Ralph!”

It’s too late though. The leash is already a mess in their legs and it tangles them together. Dylan’s got his arm around Alex, and they’re both kind of laughing helplessly. Ralph’s heart pounds harder, and honestly, he has no idea why. 

Then Alex looks up at Dylan and Ralph feels like he doesn’t breathe. It’s a weird feeling that he really only gets when Ralph knows he’s been good and he’s going to get all the treats. 

“Al-”

And of course, Alex, his best human in the whole world, pushes up on her toes and they touch mouths. Ralph barks in impulsive excitement, twitching where he sits until he can’t stand it anymore and leaps up on Alex’s hip. She stumbles, but Dylan catches her, laughing a little and there is absolutely nothing Ralph does not like about this moment. 

“Okay,” Dylan says, and his voice sounds funny, a mess of things that Ralph can’t pick apart. “Alex.”

“Let’s... “ She tugs on his shirt. “Train here. I’m coming back in a few weeks-”

“I know, Al. I know your summer.” 

“Yeah.” There’s an absolute mess of emotion in Alex’s voice too that Ralph almost doesn’t understand. “You’re solid here. You could stay here.” 

“I want to stay here.” 

“So let’s…”

Ralph doesn’t huff, because he honestly feels like if he makes even a sound he’ll break this bubble that feels extremely significant. He can’t help the way he stands though, tail wagging, when Dylan leans his head down to press against Alex’s. Ralph likes how that looks. 

“It wouldn’t be hard,” Dylan says, almost too quietly. “This is already easy, Al. I could have moved out-”

“Fuck no, Dylan-”

“Exactly. I didn’t. I’m here. You’re here. We’re… We’re already making it work. It just… Now I can do this.” And he makes it look so easy to touch her mouth with his again. It’s not long before they have to break apart because Alex is smiling too wide, and Dylan is smiling in the way Ralph has only seen with Alex. 

Alex laughs; it sounds like so much. It makes Ralph’s tail wag as he jumps up against her again. Dylan echoes her laugh, leans over to scratch at Ralph’s head. 

“Look at what you did,” Dylan says to him and Ralph tries not to let his tongue hang out, but Dylan’s head scratches are actually better than Alex’s. Ralph also can’t say he’s embarrassed; in fact he’s proud. So he lets them untangle his leash, follows where they lead easily because at the end of the day, Macy had been right. There’s a lightness to the air as they finish their walk - skipping the dog park, which Ralph isn’t upset about because it looks like Alex and Dylan are only doing this because Ralph needs fresh air and a place to do his business - and even when they’re back in the condo. 

Ralph isn’t even mad when Alex won’t let him in the bedroom when he tries to follow them after a long couch cuddle. 

Instead, he goes to find a patch of sunlight by the glass door, the wind nice over his fur as he settles in. Macy and Angel are going to love this. 


End file.
